S-Clarke

I reckon they will and that will just confirm what we all think of the idiots running VAR.

"Jan Bednarek does not kill him but I do not want to speak about the referee. Last week he was our VAR and made his mark in the game.

Don't disagree, there has to be ways we can improve. No professional outfit should lose 9-0. But he's dealt a tough hand...the bench full of kids, arguably some are probably non-league standard. But we don't respond well to adversity in games, partly that is our players - their make up is shit, but Ralph does need to take some responsibility on pulling back/closing up when needed. Sometimes we just carry on the same style for the fun of it. Leeds are very similar, they play the same way if they're 4-0 or 0-1. You risk getting absolutely bum fucked with that approach though, as we've seen. Twice.

We wilt under the pressure, we always have. We're a very meek outfit. When the going is good we are on it, but as soon as things turn bad in a game...heads drop, everyone loses their heads and we step off it and hide. The makeup of the squad in that sense isn't great and hasn't been for a long time.

Maybe we can claim 'COVID' and get it postponed.

Appreciate what he has done for us. No other manager could get this bunch playing as they have. He has performed miracles. This 'group' have these results in them, let's be honest. They're ok, but not amazing. The form he has had us on over the last 12 months has been incredible and he deserves absolutely no criticism in my eyes.

Blame for what? He's got a bench full of kids, and a starting kid who goes and gets himself sent off after 60 seconds. Our squad is a mess at the moment, he knows it, we know it, the club knows it. This isn't on him.

If the club put that on him then they can go to hell.

I wonder if we'll rush Vestergaard back for this one? You could even move Bertrand there, but then we have no full backs either. What a fucking mess.

Nope. I don't think he will, I don't think the club will even consider it either. But I imagine he's very frustrated. He got our squad to their absolute limits, there was no where else for them to go, and he hasn't ever been backed. Look at the state of our bench, look at the state of our full back options. There's no way he is happy with that, no way at all. How have the club not allowed him some flexibility to baulk it out a bit.

I know a lot will be made of VAR, which is right as it's absolutely fucking shit in it's current incarnation and used incredibly badly....but once again, we didn't do ourselves any favours with our defending. I will say the same as I did after the Leicester game, no professional outfit should ever lose 9-0, you do whatever it is you have to do to keep that score line under control. Not sure how we let that happen again tbh. I really, really feel for Ralph. He's worked absolute wonders here, absolute miracles. He got this lot top FFS! That deserves a medal in it's self. But the truth is that he hasn't been backed, he hasn't been provided with the tools that would ever enable him to do what he needs to do. He may well be looking at it and thinking it's best to jump before his rep gets ruined here.

He's been stitched up with the squad tbf.

We had worse and we came back stronger. We're better than this. We've just been dealt every single shit bit of luck you can get. There's very little else which could go wrong in a game of football.

It's all a load of waffle.

Given how shit VAR is used, I imagine we will appeal the Jan card and it will get overturned.

Just gets better and better. Alan Tapachat at the back for Newcastle then?

He probably is, he's guaranteed a start every single week here.

He's not a great finisher at all. Although he did have a goal taken off him tonight. Generally, he's decent enough at holding it up, but I don't see a true goal scorer there.

I thought we were holding out quite well second half. Oh well.

It wasn't even checked! Such inconsistent use of the technology.

The problem is when they go into that level of detail over such a marginal decision. In my opinion VAR should be used for clear misses. Missed red, missed offside (i.e like a yard), missed pen etc. They're analysing it way too deeply and gone is the 'attackers' advantage on offside. Without VAR that's a goal, every day of the week and no one would bat an eyelid.

Agreed, the use of it is criminal. How about we get natural officials to run it, who actually have experience of micro analysing replays/screens? Then you haven't got them looking after their 'mates'. As it's all very referee club at the moment. Inconsistency on the field is being taken into VAR by the same people.

They really need to sort this offside rule out. It doesn't work with VAR. Either scrap VAR, or revamp the offside rule.

Lol.

Come back on.